Evidence is building that we face a climate crisis. Today at our TICAL Arkansas conference, keynote speaker Sir Ken Robinson warned us that we also face a second and equally troubling “human resources crisis.” The future is unpredictable. If the students in our charge are going to survive, let alone thrive, in an unpredictable future, they must be creative. They must be able to think divergently. Yet current educational practice, little changed since invented to meet the predictable demands of the Industrial Age, stifles creativity and divergent thinking.
Amen. So what do we do to fix it?
First, says Sir Ken, we need to adopt new metaphors for education. I whole-heartedly agree. Since I’ve been in education, the medical metaphor has been popular. Teachers are doctors. Students are patients. Teachers diagnose needs of students, then prescribe and administer appropriate drugs and therapies (in education, we call these “interventions”). This metaphor implies that students are “sick.” After all, we don’t go to the doctor when we feel fine, only when we’ve a serious ache or pain. Sir Ken criticizes the medical metaphor because he believes it too often “mistakes the symptom for the problem.”
What new metaphor should we adopt? How about agriculture. Farmers do not make crops grow, as much as they might wish to do so. They can only affect the conditions, says Sir Ken, so that crops may grow. Adopt the agricultural metaphor and we educators should be tilling, fertilizing, and watering not testing, diagnosing, and prescribing.
In practical terms, what should we do tomorrow? Sir Ken suggest three things:
- Reconsider the current hierarchy of school subjects. Math and science truly are critical. No one doubts that. But art, music, dance—any aesthetic education—is equally critical.
- Do everything we can to develop and support good teachers. The better the teaching, the better the learning.
- Cultivate imagination. It sets humans apart from other species, and it’s a prerequisite of innovation and problem solving.
Happily, Sir Ken received a standing ovation from the 300 administrators in the audience. For some, he opened eyes. For others he eloquently articulated inchoate thoughts and opinions. As for me, I was on the verge of tears when he concluded his talk. Why? We’ll leave that for another blog entry, but it wasn’t allergies, and I was not alone in the reaction.